Apr 16, 2014 Updated Apr 30, 2014

It's International Jazz Day...! ABC Jazz is celebrating this annual event with a special broadcast of Sandy Evans' tribute to Charlie Parker, with an all star line-up of musicians. Hear it tonight at 9pm.

International Jazz Day is an initiative set up by Herbie Hancock in 2012 as part of his role as a UNESCO ‘Ambassador for Jazz’. Our 2014 contribution is a special broadcast of the work Testimony, composed by one of Australia’s favourite jazz musicians, Sandy Evans.

This piece is a tribute to life and music of Charlie Parker and was originally recorded by the ABC in 1999. It features the leading figures in Australian jazz, most notably the departed Bernie McGann, Jackie Orszaczky and Joe “bebop” Lane, and also includes the words of US poet Yesef Komunyakka and a performance by US musicians Kurt Elling and Laurence Hobgood.

Enjoy this special International Jazz Day broadcast: April 30th 2014 at 9pm Australian Eastern Time.

ABC Jazz is available in Australia on Digital Radio, TV and the ABC Mobile App and online internationally at abc.net.au/jazz.

About this haiku, Kai Falkman writes, "It seems improbable that the fog should come out from the nostrils--the fog probably surrounds the whole Buddha"; seeUnderstanding Haiku: A Pyramid of Meaning (Winchester, VA: Red Moon Press, 2002) 49. There are two huge bronze statues of the Buddha in Japan: at Kamakura and at Nara. The one at Nara, in Tôdaiji Temple, is 53 1/2 feet high and made of 400+ tons of bronze. The Kamakura Great Buddha is 37 feet high, 90+ tons. Many critics assume that Issa is referring to the Nara daibutsu, but perhaps he means the Kamakura statue, which sits outside, exposed to the elements (the temple that originally housed it having burned down).

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

The late Polish author's work bears witness to the worst of the 20th century without surrendering its human sympathy

Simple language, dark conclusions … The book of condolence for Tadeusz Różewicz is displayed at Wroclaw's City Hall. Photograph: Maciej Kulczynski/EPA

Tadeusz Różewicz, who has died at the age of 92, was one of the great European "witness" poets whose own lives were directly affected by the seismic events of the 20th century. "My decimated generation is now departed and dying, duped and disillusioned," he said soon after the fall of the Berlin Wall. He saw the forgetting of history as a disaster, "the falling of tears on the stock exchange" as he wrote in a poem of 1994.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Take advantage of the expertise of our current Writer-in-Residence, Bronwyn Lovell, in an interactive workshop this Saturday 26 April, 1-4pm. Includes tea, coffee and individual critique.

This workshop is for emerging poets who are ready to send their poems out into the world, but are having trouble finding places to welcome them.

Participants will learn how to self-edit their poems and review their writing objectively. They will be shown various checks they can perform to judge whether or not a poem is working to its full potential, and strategies they can implement to improve those poems that might otherwise not progress beyond a publisher’s slush pile.

Poets will also receive advice about literary publications and competitions that are available for them to submit their work to on local, national and international platforms; and which ones might prove a suitable fit for their own poetry style, themes and aspirations.

Participants are requested to bring along two or three poems they have written that they would like to improve in view of future publication. EMAIL THESE THROUGH TODAY OR TOMORROW AND BRONWYN CAN READ THROUGH BEFORE THE WORKSHOP. These should ideally be poems that participants feel comfortable sharing and analysing together with other members of the group. Time pending, Bronwyn will be able to offer individual feedback to each poet.

We are delighted to welcome Les Murray back to Fisher Library for readings from his collections of poetry.

Les is engaged at the moment reading the proofs of the American edition of hisCollected Works, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He says that the most he has to do is put in a comma that he should have put in years ago. Unlike Oscar Wilde who had the reverse difficulty – he struggled all morning taking a comma out and then in the afternoon put it back in again – Les thinks that the comma should always have been there, so as the afternoon wears on he will still leave it in. He agrees with Wilde however in general principle. A Murray dictum is: “When a book has reached this stage you do as little as possible because you will just end up ‘over-egging the pudding’.”

Les is heading off in May for a reading tour of Germany accompanied by his Swedish translator. He reads the English and she reads the German – although occasionally they swap. Her English has an American accent and Les’s German, according to one of his listeners, has improved. Then he presses on for more readings in London.

Les will read some old favourites and a number of new poems from a book in the making.

All are invited to attend this free event and light refreshments will be provided. This is a popular event and seats are limited so book early to avoid disappointment.

The winner will receive $4,000; the other poets will each receive $500. Our judges – Lisa Gorton (Poetry Editor of ABR) and Felicity Plunkett – chose the quartet from almost 700 poems.

The winner will be announced at a special ceremony at Boyd on Wednesday, 7 May (6 pm). Three of our poets will read their works (Paul Kane, based in the United States, has a very good excuse).

If it’s anything like last year’s Porter ceremony, when Kevin Brophy and Jessica L. Wilkinson herself gave a bravura reading of Dan Disney’s daunting shortlisted poem, ‘Procedures in Aesthetics’, it will be a hoot.

Susan Briante is the author of two books of poetry: Utopia Minus (Ahsahta Press 2011) and Pioneers in the Study of Motion (Ahsahta Press 2007). Of her most recent collection, Publisher’s Weekly writes: “this book finds an urgent language for the world in which we live.” Briante also writes essays on documentary poetics as well as on the relationship between place and cultural memory. Some of these can be found in Creative Non-Fiction, Rethinking History, Jacket and The Believer. A translator, Briante lived in Mexico City from 1991-1997 working for the magazines Artes de México and Mandorla. She has received grants and awards from the Atlantic Monthly, the MacDowell Colony, the Academy of American Poets, and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. She is finishing work on a new collection of poems, The Market Wonders, inspired by the current economic crisis.

"Despite having once been bitten by a rabid bat, and survived, much to the disappointment of my critics, I find bats fascinating, and Peggy Shumaker of Alaska has written a fine poem about them. I am especially fond of her perfect verb, “snick,” for the way they snatch insects out of the air."

Wednesday, April 09, 2014

Doors leading to the Salone Sistino, a reading room for printed books in the Vatican Apostolic Library (via Vatican Library)

What happens when a wide swath of history — previously only explored by white-gloved librarians and erudite historians — is made available to anyone with a solid internet connection? Thanks to the Pope, we’ll soon find out.

The Vatican Apostolic Library has announced it will digitize all 82,000 manuscripts in its 135 collections with the help of a Japanese IT company. That’s 41 million pages spanning nearly 2,000 years of church history that will soon be clickable, zoomable, and presumably, printable. When all is said and done, you’ll be able to read the Psalms handwritten across13th-century vellum on your iPhone — so long as you speak ancient Greek.

an online group of poets from varying styles, experience and locations, seeking and providing constructive criticism to advance our poems

The group is evolving and harmonizing. Members exercise flexibility when seeking and providing feedback to suit their writing habits and commitments.

The concept of a circle appealed to me - a continuous line, with all positions on the circumference equal; each poet contributing and responding, perhaps even inspiring other members works - creating, responding, reinventing. The momentum of the circle acting as a creative centrifuge for our members.

Poetry circle is an small group seeking a new member or two. Please contact poet Natasha Adams at http://tashadams.com/contact to express your interest.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

The Paris Review is partnering with The Standard, East Village, to find a Writer-in-Residence. The idea is this: in January, a writer with a book under contract will get a room at the Standard, East Village, in downtown Manhattan, for three weeks’ uninterrupted work. Applications will be judged by the editors of The Paris Review and Standard Culture.

"And so we are. Today through May 1, we’re accepting applications for the next residency at the Standard, East Village, in downtown Manhattan. The residency will last the first three weeks in July; once again, applicants must have a book under contract. Applications will be judged by the editors of The Paris Review and Standard Culture. You can find all the details here. (We’ll answer your most burning question in advance: yes, the room includes unlimited free coffee.)"

On the second Tuesday of April, the monthly poetry night at Sappho Books and Cafe will host poets David Brooks, Michelle Cahill and Craig Powell. Open mic too.

Tapas, drinks, poetry, etc., in a courtyard.

7pm to 9.30pm

SAPPHO'S Book Cafe and Wine Bar

51 Glebe Point Road, Glebe

DAVID BROOKSspent his earliest years in Greece and Yugoslavia, where his father was an immigration officer. He studied at the ANU before postgraduate degrees at the University of Toronto, where he was overseas editor for New Poetry and worked with such poets as Galway Kinnell, Mark Strand, and Czeslaw Milosz. His first collection, The Cold Front (1983), was short-listed for major awards. His The Book of Sei (1985) was heralded as the most impressive debut in Australian short fiction since Peter Carey’s, and his novel, The Fern Tattoo, was short-listed for Australia’s most prestigious prizes for fiction. The Sydney Morning Herald called his latest collection, The Balcony (UQP 2008), ‘an electric performance’. His most recent publication is The Conversation (UQP 2012). Until 2013 he taught Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, where he was also the foundation director of the graduate writing program. He is co-editor of Southerly.

MICHELLE CAHILLis the author of Night Birds. Her collection Vishvarūpa was shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She has received awards and grants in poetry, most recently a Forward prize nomination, the CAL/UOW International fellowship at Kingston University, London and a Developing Writer’s Grant. She co-edited Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher and Wattmann).

CRAIG POWELLBorn Wollongong NSW 1940, graduated in Medicine from Sydney Uni 1965, then specialised in Psychiatry. Lived in Canada 1972-82. During which time he studied with the Toronto Institute of Psychoanalysis. Worked as a psychotherapist in Sydney 1982 till 2012 when he had to retire because of an injury. He is widowed with two adult children and two grand-daughters. He has produced 9 poetry collections.

OPEN MICGet in early because there's only time for 10 readers, 2 minutes each, maximum!